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1.1 root 1: Some Frequently Asked Questions. Please read this carefully if you have
2: problems.
3:
1.1.1.3 ! root 4: ** COMMON PROBLEMS
1.1.1.2 root 5:
1.1.1.3 ! root 6: Q: Sometimes, after UAE exits, there is no autorepeat for the keys!
! 7: A: Do "xset r on" (happens only in X, apparently mainly on Solaris boxes.
! 8: Dunno why.). [Should be fixed by now. Note that this always happens when
! 9: UAE crashes]
1.1.1.2 root 10:
1.1.1.3 ! root 11: Q: When UAE starts up, it says "Illegal instruction: 4e7b". Why?
! 12: A: That's normal, it's just the Kickstart CPU type test.
1.1.1.2 root 13:
1.1.1.3 ! root 14: Q: When UAE starts up, it says "Illegal instruction: 00f8" (many times). Why?
! 15: A: That's because your Kickstart ROM was compiled for the 68020.
! 16: (could also happen when there's a bug in UAE)
! 17:
! 18: Q: When UAE loads <insert your favourite game> it says "Non-standard sync".
! 19: A: Your favourite game is copy-protected. There are ways to transfer such
! 20: disks, but it's complicated and I won't help you because it would be much
! 21: too time-consuming to figure out all sorts of copy-protection schemes.
! 22: I hope there will be a general solution some day, but for now you're
! 23: unlucky.
! 24:
! 25: Q: While it compiles, it says "xxx illegals generated" or "16 mismatches".
! 26: Is this a problem?
! 27: A: No. I can use this information to tell whether there is a problem, and
! 28: there isn't.
! 29:
! 30: Q: How can I produce an @ symbol (or any other sign)? On my PC keyboard it's
! 31: AltGr+Q, but that doesn't seem to work.
! 32: A: Look at the keyboard of your Amiga. Use the same combination that you would
! 33: need on a real Amiga. These combinations differ across countries. Make sure
! 34: you have loaded the right keyboard translation table for AmigaOS (e.g. in
! 35: Germany, make sure there's a "setmap de" command in the startup-sequence)
! 36: You can probably create a @ sign by pressing Alt+2, or Shift+2.
! 37:
! 38:
! 39: ** INCOMPATIBILITIES
! 40:
! 41: Q: UAE does not work with my Kickstart 1.2 image.
! 42: A: You may need to turn off the harddisk and fastmem emulation with the "-a"
! 43: parameter. Kick 1.2 doesn't support the autoboot features that the harddisk
! 44: emulation requires.
! 45: You can tell that you are suffering from this problem if UAE gives you the
! 46: message "filesys_bput called".
! 47:
! 48: Q: What do I do if a game/demo/application doesn't work?
! 49: A: If you're trying to run a game or a demo, enable some slow RAM, and try
! 50: running it again. Some older software has compatability problems which
! 51: slow RAM can sometimes fix. If it's an application, check for obvious
! 52: things like Kickstart version requirements, RAM, etc. Also make sure the
! 53: software you're trying to run isn't for AGA equipped machines.
! 54:
! 55:
! 56: ** AMIGA DISKS, DISK IMAGES, HARDDISKS, CDROMS
1.1 root 57:
58: Q: Is it possible to read Amiga disks with a PC?
59: A: Ask that in comp.emulators.misc :-) The answer is: NO! Unless you invent
60: and build some extra hardware yourself, which no one appears to have done
1.1.1.2 root 61: yet. You'd also need some extra software driver; the whole setup would be
62: similar to the X1541 cable/software for C64 emulators.
1.1.1.3 ! root 63: Some people have pointed out that you can buy a controller named "Catweasl"
! 64: which apparently can read all sorts of disks on a PC, including Amiga
! 65: disks. Please don't ask for details, I don't have the thing and I can't
! 66: tell whether it works.
1.1 root 67:
68: Q: Couldn't I attach an Amiga floppy drive to the PC somehow, and use that to
69: read Amiga disks?
70: A: You can attach Amiga (low-density) drives to the PC, because they are
71: completely identical to PC drives. This won't help you, because the problem
72: is not the drive, but the PC floppy controller. You have to live with it.
73:
1.1.1.3 ! root 74: Q: But the PC can read 11-sector formats!
! 75: A: Yes, but those sectors look a little different to the hardware.
! 76:
! 77: Q: But the Amiga can read PC disks!
! 78: A: So what?
! 79:
! 80: Q: But the PC can read Atari ST disks!
! 81: A: So what?
! 82:
1.1 root 83: Q: But...
1.1.1.3 ! root 84: A: No way. If you still are convinced that it must be possible, prove it.
! 85: Write a program to read Amiga disks with a standard PC controller, and I
! 86: will apologize in public.
! 87:
! 88: Q: How can I use DMS images?
! 89: A: Run DMS under UAE and use it just like you would on a real Amiga.
! 90: Decompressing a DMS file to DF0: will overwrite the .adf file that is
! 91: currently used to emulate df0:.
1.1 root 92:
1.1.1.2 root 93: Q: How can I transfer non-DOS disks that are used by many demos?
94: A: With transdisk. The fact that they are unreadable by AmigaDOS does not
95: mean they are unreadble by transdisk.
96: Long explanation: There are two things to consider when talking about the
97: "format" of a disk. First, the low-level format which divides each track
98: into sectors in a special way. Most Amiga disks are in the standard Amiga
99: format which has 11 sectors with 512 bytes each per track, with a total of
100: 880K per disk. There's also some extra information outside the sectors so
101: that the floppy controller can find the sectors. PC disks use a different
102: format, which is the reason why a PC controller can't read Amiga disks.
103: If a disk is formatted this way, it can be copied with the normal AmigaDOS
104: diskcopy program or the Workbench equivalent, and transdisk can handle it.
105: Copy-protected disks have a different track layout (sometimes, they don't
106: divide the tracks into sectors at all, or use more sectors, or put
107: different things between the sectors. This type of thing can't be handled
108: by diskcopy or by transdisk.
109: Now, the second part of the "format" of a disk is the filesystem. If you
110: want to put files and directories on a disk, you have to write some special
111: information into some of the sectors on the disk. That information includes
112: (for example) the name of the disk (e.g. "Workbench1.3"), and what files it
113: contains. This information is called a "filesystem". The Amiga knows about
114: several filesystems: There is the original filesystem (called OFS), and the
115: newer Fast Filesystem (FFS) which was introduced with Kickstart 1.3.
116: If you don't put a filesystem on the disk, the data in the sectors can still
117: be read by programs like transdisk or diskcopy, but the data makes no sense
118: to them. The point is, it doesn't have to. It only has to make sense for
119: the Workbench which tries to determine what files there are on a disk. If
120: the Workbench can't find a filesystem it knows about on the disk, it will
1.1.1.3 ! root 121: be marked as a non-DOS disk (as opposed to an "unreadable" disk which you
! 122: get if the low-level format is different from the standard).
1.1 root 123:
124: Q: How can I change diskfiles?
1.1.1.2 root 125: A: Your version of UAE may have a user interface (the X11 version does) which
126: enables you to do this. Read your system-specific README file for details.
1.1.1.3 ! root 127: You can also use the "uaectrl" programs from the "amiga" subdirectory.
1.1 root 128:
1.1.1.3 ! root 129: Q: Why is the floppy emulation so slow, after all the disk image is on a
! 130: harddisk?
! 131: A: Because the disk rotation is emulated. This is necessary. Use the harddisk
! 132: emulation wherever possible.
! 133:
! 134: Q: <insert your favourite problem with the hardfile emulation here>
! 135: A: Don't use the hardfile. Use the filesystem emulation ("-m" option).
! 136:
! 137: Q: How can I read Amiga CD-ROMs?
! 138: A: With the harddisk emulation. Give UAE the parameter "-M CD:/cdrom" if you
! 139: are using a Linux system with the CD mounted at /cdrom, or "-m CD:D:\" if
! 140: you are using DOS and D: is your CD-ROM drive (and if you have a different
! 141: system you should be able to figure out what to do)
1.1 root 142:
143: Q: Is it possible to read Amiga harddisks with a PC?
144: A: Yes. Linux 2.0 has an Amiga filesystem that can reportedly read Amiga
1.1.1.2 root 145: OFS/FFS harddisks. Please don't ask for details, I didn't write the thing,
1.1.1.3 ! root 146: and I don't use it (yet). I did use it to read .adf disk images, though.
1.1 root 147:
148:
1.1.1.3 ! root 149: ** FUTURE PLANS
1.1 root 150:
1.1.1.3 ! root 151: Q: When will the next version come out, and what will be in it?
! 152: A: It will come out when it's done.
1.1 root 153:
1.1.1.3 ! root 154: Q: Will there be a shareware version or some registration fee for future
! 155: versions of UAE?
! 156: A: No.
1.1 root 157:
1.1.1.3 ! root 158: Q: Couldn't you use ARDI's CPU emulation to speed it up?
! 159: A: UAE is free software. It comes with sourcecode. ARDI's Executor is
! 160: proprietary and sold commercially. ARDI has no reason at all to give away
! 161: their code for free, because they wouldn't make any more money if they did.
! 162: (yes, I really get asked this kind of thing! I don't know where people take
! 163: these ideas from).
1.1 root 164:
165:
1.1.1.3 ! root 166: ** UAE SPEED
1.1 root 167:
1.1.1.3 ! root 168: Q: I don't get steady sound output! I only have a 486DX40, could this be
! 169: related?
! 170: A: Try a Pentium-II-300, these things are reported to do better.
1.1 root 171:
172: Q: Would it be possible to speed it up by emulating the CPU native on, say,
173: a 68k Mac?
174: A: I doubt it. UAE needs to be able to interrupt the CPU emulation anytime to
1.1.1.2 root 175: perform tasks necessary for emulating the hardware. So you can't just let
176: it run all by itself.
1.1 root 177:
178: Q: Would it be possible to speed it up by using graphics accelerator boards
179: for example by using the blitter in S3 chips?
1.1.1.2 root 180: A: I doubt it. I'm no PC graphics card expert, but probably the only thing the
181: S3 blitter and the Amiga blitter have in common are seven lowercase
182: letters. Even if they were similar you'd have to keep all Amiga chip
1.1 root 183: RAM in the graphics memory and that would most likely make everything
184: painfully slow.
185:
1.1.1.3 ! root 186: Q: How about adding special support for the GUS/other wavetable boards that
! 187: uses hardware features to speed up the sound emulation?
1.1.1.2 root 188: A: Again, due to the differences in Amiga and PC (in this case: GUS) hardware,
189: this isn't really feasible. You _might_ get something like this to work in
190: some special cases (ProTracker modules might be a case that could be made
191: to work), but I don't think you can come up with something that emulates
192: all of the Amiga sound hardware.
193: The problem is that by just examining the values a program writes into the
194: audio hardware registers, you can hardly figure out what a program is
195: trying to do, and what it is going to do in the future. In contrast to
196: that, it's easy to write a SoundTracker module player for GUS cards because
197: you know exactly what you are playing, and how you have to do it.
198: (That doesn't mean you can't use the GUS for sound output; you just can't
199: use it to _speed up_ the sound output)
1.1 root 200:
201: Q: Emulating all the hardware is a bad idea. Why don't you just emulate the
202: OS? After all, that's what makes the Amiga the Amiga.
203: A: Short answer: I disagree.
204: Long answer: The OS is half of what makes the Amiga the Amiga. It is a very
205: nice OS, and there are some features that I miss in any other OS, but it is
206: also severely lacking in terms of (for example) memory protection and
207: filesystem performance.
208: The other thing that made the Amiga special back in the 1980s is the custom
209: chip architecture. If you look into old (1985) computer magazines, you will
210: find that the capabilites of the Amiga OS are only mentioned as a side
211: note, because people were not aware that it was revolutionary for a home
212: computer. They were aware, though, that the Amiga could display 4096 colors
213: at the same time and that it had a blitter and a copper that could do all
214: sorts of stuff, like bouncing balls for instance. And I think it was the
215: superiority of the hardware that made the Amiga a success.
216: I see UAE as a program that is similar to C64 emulators: it allows you to
217: run some old games and other programs that you can't replace with better
218: equivalents on the PC. As such, it can already be used to run non-action
219: games (like Monkey Island or Bard's Tale) at a satisfactory speed. Faster
220: CPUs will eventually make it possible to run action games, just like faster
221: CPUs have made it possible to emulate a C64 at full speed on a PC. UAE is
222: not (primarily) meant for the Amiga PowerUser who is running high quality
223: applications on his A4000 with a 68060 board, but for people like me who
224: switched from an A500 to the PC a few years ago because they wanted to make
225: money by developing software.
226: Besides, emulating an OS is far more difficult IMHO. Especially if the
227: platform you are emulating it on is completely different than the platform
228: that is being emulated. You'd have to mess with endianness conversions and
229: other nightmares. The AmigaOS wasn't designed with portability in mind
230: either.
231:
1.1.1.2 root 232: Q: How fast is it?
1.1.1.3 ! root 233: A: It depends.
! 234: For crunching files with PowerPacker, UAE is 17 times faster than my A500
! 235: on my K6-233.
! 236: For playing Turrican I, it's running at about full speed (with sound).
! 237: For playing Turrican III, it is slightly slower than the A500.
! 238: For some (not many) demos, it's a fair bit slower than the A500.
! 239: Rule of thumb: Sound emulation really takes time; so do copper effects and
! 240: scrolling. If you don't need either, you're fine.
1.1.1.2 root 241:
242: Q: How can I make it faster?
243: A: Run the emulator in the lowest screen mode (320x200), set it to 256 colors,
244: make sure aspect correction is disabled, and set the frame rate to every 3rd
245: frame. Finally, disable sound (if you have a version that lets you compile
246: your own executable, set "DONT_WANT_SOUND" in config.h). It won't look very
247: nice, but it will run as fast as your machine allows.
1.1.1.3 ! root 248: If you are running the X version, make sure you use the "-T" option. Not
! 249: using this option is "safer", but makes the emulator very slow. Even better,
! 250: when you run configure, say "configure --enable-dga" if your X server
! 251: (XFree86 3.2 or higher) supports it.
! 252: It's especially important that you don't use 24 bit or 32 bit color modes.
1.1.1.2 root 253:
1.1.1.3 ! root 254:
! 255: ** MISCELLANEOUS
! 256:
! 257: Q: Do I need a real Amiga to use this program?
! 258: A: Yes, unless you have some other way of legally getting ROM files and system
! 259: software, such as the Cloanto Amiga Forever CD.
! 260:
! 261: Q: Where can I download a Kickstart ROM/Amiga games?
! 262: A: Read the docs again. You can't. It would be illegal to put a ROM image or
! 263: other copyrighted software on the net (yes, even if you once bought a
! 264: specific Amiga game and sold it together with the computer, downloading the
! 265: same game now would still be illegal. Sorry.)
! 266:
! 267: Q: Does UAE run on the DEC Alpha/Sparcstations/SGIs/whatever?
! 268: A: UAE should run on all Unix systems that have at least X11R5 and a decent
! 269: C compiler installed. So the answer is probably yes. Just use the generic
! 270: Unix source and follow the instructions in README.UNIX to compile it.
! 271:
! 272: Q: Why is there a blank area on the left side of the screen?
! 273: A: The Amiga can display graphics there, but usually doesn't because this
! 274: would disable some sprites. The area is only used by some overscan demos.
! 275: Normal screens are off-center. I'm not going to do anything about that.
! 276: If you can't stand it, you can try to use 320x200 or 640x480 resolution,
! 277: which will attempt to center the screen. This is near impossible to get
! 278: right for every program. If your screen doesn't fit in lower resolutions,
! 279: use 800x600.
! 280:
! 281: Q: Where is a complete summary of all command line switches ?
! 282: A: In the README files. You can also generate it yourself by typing:
! 283: uae -h > uae-help.txt
! 284:
! 285: Q: Benchmark program <insert your favourite benchmark> gives weird results.
! 286: A: Amiga programs run by the emulator think the Amiga timers can be used to
! 287: measure real time. But in UAE, they only measure "emulation time". Sysinfo,
! 288: for example, gives the same results on all machines. So don't run
! 289: benchmarks to test the emulator speed.
! 290: Some benchmarks also use tight loops of DIV or MUL instructions to measure
! 291: CPU speed, and in "emulation time" these instructions take as much time
! 292: as any other instructions, and you'll get much too high values.
! 293: If you enabled the "HAVE_RDTSC" option, running benchmarks makes some more
! 294: sense. Still not a lot, since there is a minimum speed that the benchmark
! 295: will report on every machine. The faster the machine, the more accurate
! 296: will your results be.
! 297:
! 298: Q: Wasn't this called the Unusable Amiga Emulator?
! 299: A: Yes. But no one thought the name was very fitting anymore, though. It was
! 300: only really appropriate for v0.1, which couldn't even boot.
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